Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study • Hacker News Board

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#141

Post by antasvara » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 3:43 AM UTC

Having been through Montessori, I think it's fantastic for kids that are naturally self-driven. I had a great time when it came to learning science and English (the two subjects I cared the most about).

Howrver, I was also pretty far behind in math for reasons unrelated to ability (standardized testing and secondary educational success indicate that I'm actually pretty good at math). I also left with very underdeveloped time management and study skills.

Could these downsides have been mitigated? Definitely, and my parents largely made sure they were. But in talking to my peers at the time, my parents after the fact, and parents of to hers that went to Montessori schools, I think the general idea holds.

Point being that self driven education is fantastic for a lot of reasons. But it will also let a lot of kids stay far behind their ability if not carefully monitored.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#142

Post by lazyasciiart » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 4:08 AM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #125

WillAdams wrote: post #32

My children attended Montessori schools, and it really is a wonderful system. I would really like to see an extension of this learning method up through high school --- the closest thing I'm aware of was a school I attended in Mississippi for a couple of years --- classes were divided between academic and social, social classes (homeroom, phys ed, social studies, &c.) were attended at one's age, while academic classe…

My biggest skepticism about Mamdani in NYC is that he wants to get rid of gifted programs. Apparently some thing it's wrong to adjust each child's learning experience to their capacity for learning. Which is... Wild. If an 8 year old can do algebra, let them cook.

That’s not what he said. He wants to get rid of kids being tracked into gifted kindergartens because a) it’s ludicrous and b) testing four year olds is just a roundabout way of finding the kids with parents who got them a tutor for kindergarten entrance exams, and the replacement metric of getting pre-k teachers to pick them is not much different. He argues that kids don’t need to be shuffled off to special schools until more like 8 years old, when the 2nd grade testing happens.

He also obviously doesn’t believe it’s wrong to adjust learning to capacity. He just has the less popular view that this can be done without tagging kids at four years old and changing their lives. (He probably also understands that there’s plenty a brilliant math kid who belongs in a standard English class, or even in remedial classes to deal with a concurrent learning disability).

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#143

Post by aidenn0 » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 4:33 AM UTC

didibus wrote: post #104

WillAdams wrote: post #32

My children attended Montessori schools, and it really is a wonderful system. I would really like to see an extension of this learning method up through high school --- the closest thing I'm aware of was a school I attended in Mississippi for a couple of years --- classes were divided between academic and social, social classes (homeroom, phys ed, social studies, &c.) were attended at one's age, while academic classe…

> while academic classes (reading, math, science, geography, history, &c.) were by ability My issue with this is that it just is selection bias, telling you nothing about how good the method is at teaching. Does placing by ability actually helps student learn and score better? Or it's just that those who are good and bad already get divided up, and we know not why some are good and others are worse?

From my limited observations it must; at least in cumulative subjects like math.

Too many kids are just completely lost because they were moved up to the next math class despite not understanding the previous math class.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#144

Post by kqr » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 4:38 AM UTC

sushp wrote: post #45

WillAdams wrote: post #32

My children attended Montessori schools, and it really is a wonderful system. I would really like to see an extension of this learning method up through high school --- the closest thing I'm aware of was a school I attended in Mississippi for a couple of years --- classes were divided between academic and social, social classes (homeroom, phys ed, social studies, &c.) were attended at one's age, while academic classe…

I had a good impression of "Montessori" from hearing that Larry/Sergey/Bezos went to one. When I put my kid in it at 3 years old, he hated it. As I looked into it more, it seems to me that it is actually very rigid, with kids being able to play with just a small set of toys that don't really exercise their creativity, and with little opportunity for group play. We switched him to a Reggio Emilia school where the kids…

We will soon be picking a school for our oldest. (Not in the US.) We're choosing between a Montessori school and a couple others.

I see a lot of sentiment along the line of "quality over philosophy" -- how can we evaluate quality? There is limited data available[1]. What do we ask the school when we visit them?[2]

[1]: Unsure if standardised test scores really matter at a young age, so we're grasping for straws with "fraction of parents with tertiary education" (higher means children have more progressive views?) and "fraction of girls in each class" (higher means calmer classrooms?).

[2]: I don't know how to evaluate schools so my best ideas are to ask about staff retention (is it a tolerable environment?), how they evaluate that they get the desired effects out of efforts (do they do things purposefully?), etc.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#145

Post by danpalmer » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 4:50 AM UTC

edmundsauto wrote: post #130

shermantanktop wrote: post #129

My children could read at 4 and we were told that the Montessori school would not let them read because it was age-inappropriate. We did not enroll.

My Montessori school enabled and encouraged me to read Judy Bloom books (age 8-10 appropriate) when I was 5. yMMV.

My regular public school enabled and encouraged me to read books beyond my age for my entire school career.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#146

Post by unethical_ban » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 4:58 AM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #142

unethical_ban wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest skepticism about Mamdani in NYC is that he wants to get rid of gifted programs. Apparently some thing it's wrong to adjust each child's learning experience to their capacity for learning. Which is... Wild. If an 8 year old can do algebra, let them cook.

That’s not what he said. He wants to get rid of kids being tracked into gifted kindergartens because a) it’s ludicrous and b) testing four year olds is just a roundabout way of finding the kids with parents who got them a tutor for kindergarten entrance exams, and the replacement metric of getting pre-k teachers to pick them is not much different. He argues that kids don’t need to be shuffled off to special schools u…

If this is true then I stand corrected. I understand the bias of "rich kids get training" so if he is not killing gifted programs but merely adjusting them, then fine.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#147

Post by kqr » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 6:05 AM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #23

Table S34 shows that over 20% of the control group either stayed home or didn't provide info on what they did. (Compared with ~4% of the intent-to-treat group) So, sadly, they weren't able to directly compare 'public Montessori PK3' with 'public non-Montessori PK3'.

That lowers the statistical power of the experiment. It does not bias it. That's the beauty of intention-to-treat designs: they trade away bias for lower power -- a worthwhile trade every day of the week.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#148

Post by edmundsauto » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 6:17 AM UTC

danpalmer wrote: post #145

edmundsauto wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Montessori school enabled and encouraged me to read Judy Bloom books (age 8-10 appropriate) when I was 5. yMMV.

My regular public school enabled and encouraged me to read books beyond my age for my entire school career.

That's great! I did Montessori through 2nd grade, it was formative and important for me because I suspect I'm a little on the spectrum. Montessori helped me thrive in a way that was critical for my development at the time. I also suspect that switching to public school was equally important to toughen me up.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#149

Post by spoon404 » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 6:21 AM UTC

I went to a Montessori school in the Netherlands and feel like it failed me. Just one data point and maybe it was just a bad school.

I have autism and nobody noticed or did anything about it until it was time to start preparing for high school in seventh grade. I had read all the books in the school library but was not able to spell and write. It was just way to easy for me to escape work I did not want to do.

We moved after I started high school and my sisters had to change school because of it. One of the first things they noticed at their new school is how incredibly lazy they where.

I am very happy working as a mailman but I do wonder what I would be doing now if I had learned how to study and learn at a younger age.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#150

Post by warrenmiller » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 6:33 AM UTC

jrh3 wrote: post #42

I went to a Montessori school from pre-K through 6th grade. I totally agree with this article. It is not easy to make this work on a public school-sized scale. The problem in education is not funding. We were a private school, but we made it work on a shoestring.

They make it work as a public schooling system in Amsterdam. About 10% of the public schools are Montessori.